


Firsts

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Firsts, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 15:35:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8996545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A love story told as a chronicle of its firsts.





	1. Chapter 1

**First Sight**

The first time Lena laid eyes on Kara Danvers, she was the plucky sidekick to the Daily Planet’s star reporter, Clark Kent.  She was hiding her attractiveness under wholesome clothes and glasses and a tidy little ponytail, but she couldn’t hide her height, or her broad shoulders.   _ Amazon, _ she thought to herself with amusement.  It was strange for someone built like that to not wear the confidence that normally came along with it.    


She was disarming, Kara Danvers; gentle, curious, asking questions occasionally but mostly quiet, watching and listening.  But for all her awkwardness, the way she tripped over her words, Lena never felt that Kara was specifically bothered by  _ her _ .    


And the one moment when she held Lena’s gaze, her eyes were soft, but she saw a strength that she was surprised by.

And if something fluttered in her chest, well, she decided she didn’t notice it.

 

**First Phone Call**

Kara’s voice on the phone was light as cotton candy, and warm as sunshine.  Lena wasn’t used to having friends, wasn’t used to talking to people who were just calling to say hello.  Who were calling for the sheer pleasure of hearing her voice and knowing how she was doing.  She knew it was very much her own doing; growing up Luthor had left her feeling safer without close friendships.  But it had been lonely too.    


And yes, there were times that Kara came to her office, or called her, because she needed her help.  But there were also times that she was sincerely looking for the simple pleasure of speaking to her, of having an excuse to let Lena’s name roll off her tongue.  Lena could always tell the difference.  The first time it happened, it was so foreign an experience, she interrupted Kara halfway through a rambling rhapsody about the Shanghai soup dumplings she’d gotten to ask, “I’m… I’m sorry, did you… need something?”

She instantly regretted it when she heard the confusion in Kara’s voice, the little hurt that she tried her best to instantly paper over.  “Uh, no...I’m sorry, is… is this a bad time?”

She scrambled.  “No no!  No, I’m sorry, I just… I… I’m used to people calling me because they want something.”

She could hear the relief in Kara’s voice.  “Oh!  No… I just wanted to talk to you.  Do you have time?”

Lena told her secretary to hold her calls.  She kicked off her shoes and stretched out in her large leather chair, and they talked for half an hour about soup dumplings and Lena’s trips to Shanghai and Hong Kong and how she was learning Mandarin because L Corp was starting to do more business in China.

She hung up with a rosy glow in her cheeks.  It was a strange feeling.

 

**First Meeting With Supergirl**

The first time she saw Supergirl was at the renaming ceremony of L Corp.  But it wasn’t until the fundraiser that she got a good look at her.    


She held herself tall, shoulders back, chin up, just the way Lena supposed that a woman built like her should do.  But there was no mistaking those eyes, those soft, strong, beautiful blue eyes.  She was Kara Danvers, and Lena knew it.    


And she watched Kara Danvers fight for her that night, when Miner and his men arrived to raid the place, and the power in that frame was the most raw, beautiful thing she’d ever seen.  

  
  


**First Date**

Lena wasn’t nervous exactly, to ask Kara on a date, because after a great deal of thought, she had concluded that she was indeed asking Kara Danvers, and not Supergirl.  Supergirl had saved her life, more than once.  Watching Supergirl leap in front of her and take that giant slab of rock in the chest, watching smash to bits against her, well… that was exciting, it left her heart pounding, and not entirely out of fear.  But it was her softness, her warmth.  Those eyes.  That was why she wanted to get closer.

She wasn’t smooth about it.  She didn’t make her intentions clear from the outset.  She was clumsier, in fact, than she’d ever been about anything.  She took her to dinner at the best Shanghai restaurant she could find, flirting awkwardly over dinner.  Kara didn’t seem to mind, although she was a little confused and tried to object when Lena picked up the check.  Finally, they left, walking the streets of Chinatown that were wet with rain from a brief storm and glistening with light from the lanterns strung across them.    


They paused under a lamp post, waiting for some cars to ease by.  Lena took her hand, suddenly, impulsively.  “Kara,” she blurted, “you do know I meant for this to be a date, right?”

And Kara laughed, a great, relieved belly laugh and threw her arms around Lena’s waist and pulled her close.  “Oh, thank goodness!  I kept worrying I overdressed!”

  
  
**First Kiss**

Kara felt like a hot stone wrapped in silk.  Lena let herself laugh with her.  She looked up at her, how she seemed to glow under the pale gold lamp light.  Laughing was the most satisfying release she’d felt in a long time.  Better than crying, better than fucking.  Standing under street lamp on a cool damp evening with Kara, laughing, in matching tan raincoats, with their arms around each other, felt so right it was almost frightening.    


“Kara,” she gasped through her laughter, as tears trickled out the corners of her eyes.    


“Yes?”  Kara tilted her head down and pressed her forehead against Lena’s.  Her laughter slowed a little.  Her face was so close, Lena could feel Kara’s breath on her lips.  So close, her two eyes looked like one.

“Would you…?”  She stopped, gathered her breath, and tried again.    


“You have one eye,”  Kara giggled.

Her mirth was infectious.  “No, you do.”

“No, you do.”

“Kara, shut up.  I’m trying to kiss you.”

And then Kara closed the gap.  Their lips met.  Lena’s pulse fluttered.  Kara’s lips were soft, her arms were strong, and her laugh was infectious. It was so joyful, she barely recognized herself.  

 


	2. Chapter 2

**First Boat Trip**

Lena was an accomplished sailor.  She had a forty foot sailboat, not really large enough to consider it a yacht, because she wanted something she could manage by herself without extra hands on deck. 

About a month into dating, she insisted that they go out on the water, and Kara could hardly say no.  They took their bathing suits and sailed out onto the open ocean, letting the salty breezes and Pacific sun kiss their skin.  She dropped the sails when they were far enough from the coastline that it was just a white smudge in the distance, and they listed softly on the waves, soaking up the air.  Kara was leaning on her elbows against the aft port side railing, face upturned toward the brilliant turquoise sky.  She wore a red two piece bathing suit, and Lena stared at her, at the arch of her back, at the magnificence of her body, at the way the currents of air toyed with her flaxen hair and made it like solid breeze around her face.  She was muscular, but not grossly so.  Just perfect, like a Greek statue carved from marble.  Just looking at her made Lena’s heart feel like a mad balloon caught on a breeze.

This was always the easy part of a relationship, when everything was new, everything was alive with anticipation, when kisses were fresh and hot, and desire was just begging to be fulfilled.  Standing on the precipice of the first time they would make love, it felt like jumping out of a plane.  It was before everything was too deep and too serious and before the other party was demanding more intimacy than Lena was prepared to offer, and she let herself wantonly tumble forward into the breach.  It was a point of pride for Lena that even when she was going somewhere she ought not, she always knew where she was and where she was headed.

She broke out some chilled white wine and they lay on a blanket on the deck, drinking, sunbathing, and kissing with soft but growing intensity. 

Sometimes, Lena mused, you could guess what sort of lover someone would be just from their personality.  In Kara’s case, she was half right, half wrong.   She expected that she would be attentive and gentle, but hesitant and inexperienced.  Kara was indeed maddeningly gentle, and everywhere she touched or laid her lips, she’d look up afterward and ask in quiet tones, “Is this good? Do you like this?”  But after a little of this, it became clear from the way Kara was looking at her, with a little knowing smile playing around her mouth, that she knew exactly what she was doing, was reading Lena’s responses perfectly well, and knew without question that she was slowly, very slowly, driving Lena out of her mind.  Her fingers and tongue were finding every one of Lena’s spots from the tips of her ears to the inner crook of her elbows to the bones of her hips to the base of her spine.  And always, always, with the softest, sweetest smile.

The wine had gone to her head and her skin was baking in the sun and steaming in the sea spray that curled in gusts over the side of the boat. Kara’s weight was delightful on her, and she finally tangled her fingers in Kara’s hair and whispered raggedly, “Stop asking, Kara, just fuck me.”

Kara’s dimples deepened.  She was only too happy to oblige.  Lena lost track of how many times she came but she swore she felt Kara shudder in sympathy every time, mirroring the orgasm with one of her own.  When she asked Kara whether she’d read her correctly, Kara smiled and nodded.

“That’s rare,” Lena remarked, impressed.

Kara shrugged.  “You feel amazing.  You taste amazing.  Your face when you come is so beautiful, it’s amazing.  It’s easy.”

Lena smirked.  “No, I mean it’s statistically rare.  Like, one in a thousand.  Not many people can do that, finish like that without being … stimulated directly.”

“I’m not many people,”  Kara murmured, and nibbled at the tip of Lena’s ear again.

Her sails were full.  She knew a storm lay brewing but at the moment, it seemed worth sailing directly into it.  “Will you let me return the favor?”

“You already are,” Kara whispered into her ear, in a soft voice that sent hot shivers down Lena's back.

Lena closed her eyes and prayed for rain.


	3. Chapter 3

**First Fight**

Lena didn’t know where it came from.  She surprised herself, to be frank.  She’d had to cancel plans with Kara from time to time, too, for one reason or another, most of them work related.  But on this particular evening, they were supposed to get dinner together, and Kara canceled at the last minute because Cat Grant had blown into town.

It was a strange feeling, this jealousy.  It sizzled down her nerve endings and flushed her cheeks and made her throat close up.  She’d never allowed herself to get attached enough to someone to feel jealous of them spending time with someone else.  But here she was, snapping into the phone at Kara.

“Lena,” Kara had demanded with no small amount of indignation, “why are you being like this?  I told you, nothing ever happened between me and Cat.  Never!”

“But it would have if she had wanted it,”  Lena retorted.  “Right?”

Kara sighed.  “Lena… look, yes, maybe.  I don’t know.  It was never a possibility.  Even if she wanted that, which I don’t think she did, she would have seen it as an abuse of her power with me.  And you know, it would have been.  But she’s still important to me.  She really helped me grow at a pivotal point in my life.  I owe a lot of who I am to her.”

Lena knew she was being childish.  But she couldn’t help pouting, “You never say that about me.”

Kara’s voice was small on the other end of the phone.  “Lena, we’ve only been dating a few months.  Cat was my mentor for _ two years _ .  Besides… do you really  _ want _ to be that important to me?”

Lena hesitated.  The more she pursued this point, the more it was going to go into waters where she couldn’t navigate and the tiller chose its own direction, and she wasn’t about to have that.  She took a few deep breaths and calmed herself.  “Kara,” she said evenly, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t even realize myself that I was so jealous of Cat.  We can get dinner Thursday night instead, if you’re around.”

Kara sighed, sounding suddenly tired.  “Are you sure?  Are you sure we’re not going to fight about this later if I go?”

“No,” Lena assured her, trying to keep the strain out of her voice.  “I promise, it's fine.”

Lena had to admit though, it wasn’t even about sexual jealousy.  It wasn’t about Cat Grant.  She had no reason to disbelieve Kara when she said that nothing had happened between her and Cat, nor ever would.  It was just that she found herself resenting that there was someone who was taking Kara’s time away from her.  That there was someone who meant more to Kara than she did.    


This new vulnerability was troubling.  She didn’t like it.  Kara was right to question whether Lena really wanted the pressure of being that important in Kara’s life.  The problem was, Kara was beginning to mean that much to her.  She could already feel it.

  
  
  


**First Flight**

Lena became mildly obsessed with Kara’s super powers.  She wanted to know everything about what she could do, how her powers worked, how her senses experienced stimuli.  It was the scientist in her.  It couldn't be helped.

“Alright,” she said, seemingly out of the blue over lunch at Lena’s place in the hills one day, “so tell me something.”

They'd been dating for four months now.  Kara was used to these abrupt topic changes.  “What's that?”

“What is it exactly about your cellular makeup that enables flight when you're under the yellow sun?”

“Um…”  Kara floundered, clearly blindsided by the question.    


Lena looked at her with amusement. “I'm sorry, it's probably bad super-etiquette, but I have so many questions.”

For maybe the first time since they had known each other, Kara looked truly uncomfortable.  “You, uh… You surprised me.  I mean, I figured you probably suspected but I just… I wanted this to be a conversation we had when I was ready, that's all.”

Lena folded her arms and looked Kara over for a moment.  “You mean when you were sure you trusted me?”

Kara looked hurt, and Lena instantly regretted it.  She softened her tone and tried a different tack.  “Kara, I don't have the luxury of not talking about my secrets.  They're all out there, whether I like it or not, because of who my family is and what they've done.  Can you understand what that's like for me?”

Kara surrendered after a moment of thought.  “Yes,” she admitted.  “And I'm sorry, we should have talked about this sooner.”

Lena took Kara’s hand.  “Just so you know, I wanted to date Kara Danvers.  Getting Supergirl was just a nice bonus.”    


Kara smiled, suddenly shy.  “I guess I worried that you'd only be interested in Supergirl and not in me.”

Lena gave her a fond look.  “Kara, it's all part of you.  If I don't know Supergirl, how do I really know  _ you _ ?”

Kara squeezed her hand.  “Do you want that?”

Lena frowned. “Why would you ask me that?”

Kara shrugged.  “I don't know.  It just sometimes feels like… like there's part of you that's not available to me.  I really like you, Lena.  I just don't want to push you for more than you want to give.”

Lena bit her lip.  Was Kara that intuitive?  Or was her own fear of giving all of herself that obvious?  “Kara, I don't let myself get close to people.  You've always been different.  Because you believed in me from the beginning.  You trusted me.  I just want you to do that now, with this too.  I promise, I'll never give you a reason to regret it.”

Kara considered her for a long moment.  The she disappeared for a half second, and reappeared beside the table with a rush of air, wearing her Supergirl blue and red.  Even knowing that it was all Kara, Lena still felt as though the suit gave her a confidence and authority that she didn't emanate without it.  She wondered whether it was something that she hid when she was in her street clothes, or whether she rose to the role of hero when she was wearing the suit.    


“Alright, Lena.  But you have to trust me, too.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“You're going to have to come flying with me.”

Lena was out of her chair before the words even finished leaving Kara’s mouth.  “Do you mean it?” she exclaimed, drawing close to Kara. 

“Well that was easy,” Kara chuckled.  “Yes, I mean it.”

In truth, Lena had wanted this from the moment she first felt sure she was dating Supergirl.  She would have eventually asked if Kara hadn't offered.  Her eyes gleamed with excitement.  “So, what’s the best way to do this?”  As they talked, Lena’s fingers were running over Kara’s biceps under the suit, marveling at the fabric, at the way it hugged the curves of her muscles. 

Kara smiled, aware of Lena’s curious mind exploring this new part of her.  “Well, it's really what you're most comfortable with.  I can carry you bridal style, or you can sort of, you know, hug me.”  She slipped her arms around Lena’s waist.

“I want to see what you see,” Lena said immediately.  “Can we do it like hang gliding?  You hold me from behind?”

Kara smirked, but nodded.  “Yeah.  We can do that.”

They went out onto the deck.  Lena stood in front of Kara.  She felt those strong arms encircle her waist and press her tightly against Kara’s front.  She reached back and curled her hands around Kara’s legs.  “I'm ready.”

She felt them slowly rise up off of the deck and at first she tensed, because it was a new sensation.  She wasn’t accustomed to defying the laws of physics.  Kara was clearly going slowly to allow her to get used to it.  Soon, they were drifting over the tops of the palms toward the water.  “Where are we going?” Lena asked.

“I was thinking out on the ocean.”

Lena grinned.  Kara adjusted their angle and Lena put her arms out to the side, felt the air brushing through her hair and tugging at her clothes.  She’d been base jumping before, of course, but this wasn’t that.  It wasn’t free fall.  The world looked smaller, more beautiful from up here, in a way that she didn’t fully appreciate before.  Just being in it, immersed in it, made it different.  Being in a plane or chopper was like looking at it through a television screen.  With this, it was real.  She was suspended in a state of grace, touching it's stratosphere, but still immersed.  National City was a jewel on the coast and Lena was part of it, and Kara was part of it, and what was growing between them was part of it.

Lena was seized with a new enthusiasm.  “Can we go faster?

Kara chuckled and picked up their speed, soaring over the water.  Lena let loose a hoot of joy as they dipped down, swooping toward the sparkling surface of the ocean, heaving and churning with the yellow-gold sun dappled across it and the waves tipped with white foam.  Kara dropped them further till they were skimming just above it.  Seagulls followed in their wake, squawking their objection to finding a pair of human types out in their playground.  Lena dipped her fingers down and trailed them along the surface of the water, kicking up a little trail of spray, and she laughed out loud.    


They arced upwards toward the clouds, and hovered just below them, almost standing perfectly vertical again in midair.  Lena caught her breath and leaned her head back against Kara’s chest.  Kara did a slow turn, giving her the vista in every direction.  “This is why I believe in the best in people,”  Kara murmured in her ear.  She saw the city, the boats, the turquoise sky, the lapis ocean, the grey seagulls, the planes streaking above them leaving trails of white behind them, and she was overcome.  “Look at how beautiful this is.  Yes, it’s an accident of ecology and geology and the cosmos but… look at what people did with it.  This is what I see.  Since you asked.”  She kissed the side of Lena’s neck.

  
“I always did like the ocean,”  Lena sighed happily, enjoying the feel of Kara’s strong arms clasping her tight, of being pressed against her powerful body.  She knew without question that Kara would never let go.  She wasn’t falling in love with Kara, she reflected.  Not at all.  She was being drawn upwards into it, out of darkness, into light.


	4. Chapter 4

**First Birthday**

Lillian Luthor didn’t really know how to love.  When she cut Lena to the quick with some stinging remark, she tried to buy her off afterwards with expensive gifts; clothes, electronics, whatever she thought might patch the injury.  Lena grew up with extravagant parties with people she barely knew or liked, and piles of expensive things that she learned to enjoy, sometimes a great deal.  She’d always had the nagging sense from going to other parties that some people’s lives were different.  It was hard to imagine.

As an adult, she’d gotten out of the habit of celebrating her birthday or even mentioning it, really.  If someone was intrepid enough to find out her birthday and send her a card, she was mildly impressed.  Kara, naturally, had nagged her incessantly when they began dating, wanting to know her birthday.  Eventually, Kara’s sweet but firm persistence pried it out of her.  Kara was pleased to know that Lena was a Cancer, because they were water signs, and therefore compatible with Kara’s earthy Virgo.

The first birthday of Lena’s that they spent together, Kara started the day with a text message:  
_Today I celebrate the day that you came into this world.  You are a gift from the universe.  ****_

Lena snorted.  What silliness.  Who talked like that?

Kara did.  A part of her swooned.

Kara insisted that Lena clear her evening, so she obliged.  At 8pm, Supergirl touched down on Lena’s terrace.  “I can’t give you expensive jewelry on a reporter’s salary OR a superhero’s, so you’re going to have to content yourself with what only I can give you,” she teased.

They assumed the position that was their favorite, with Kara behind her, clasping her waist, and Kara took her for a moonlit flight over the coast, then circled back over the city, ending at her own modest little place.  Lena loved those flights.  Her fingers itched to peel that super-suit off of Kara and have dessert first, but Kara remained firm that it would have to wait.  Lena pouted while Kara started cooking; soon enough, though, the smell of veal saltimbocca began to overwhelm the room and the white wine and sage and garlic mingled heavy in the air, making her mind a bit less that she was being made to wait for sex.   

Over a candle-lit dinner with champagne and tiramisu that Kara also apparently made herself, they shared the kind of warm, easy laughter that was making Kara more dear to her with each passing day.  Kara was hopelessly sentimental, doting on her to an extent that Lena had never really had before.  A place inside Lena was a little uncomfortable; was this what normal people had on their birthdays?  Or was Kara so infatuated with her that she was going well above and beyond?  Both were distinct possibilities.  

Kara capped the night with running a hot bubble bath for her.  Lena begged her to get in, but she demurred and brought her another glass of champagne.  When Lena was sufficiently loose and limp, Kara picked her up, wrapped her in a thick towel, and carried her to bed. 

“Oh my god, are you kidding?”  Lena groaned as she lay sprawled on her stomach. Kara was straddling Lena’s hips, her fingers worked along the muscles on either side of her spine.  Kara’s hands were strong, and never tired, and she massaged the tension from every fiber of every muscle in her body.  She rolled over and saw the way Kara’s face was shining, the way she thrilled at being with her, at attending to her in this way.

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed.  How could this be?  How could someone want to treat her like this, with so much care?  She was ambushed by a sudden wave of tears welling up in her eyes. 

Kara’s heart had always been more open than hers.  Always, from the beginning.  Lena was used to people either trying to get something from her, or of them holding her at arm’s length, as if she were radioactive because of her family name.  Kara never did.  She always smiled at her from way down deep, even in the beginning.  She was always ready to let Lena be her own person.  It probably had everything to do with why Lena was so ready to let Kara get closer to her.  How could she resist the seductive pull of being accepted for who she was and judged on her own merits? 

The softness of Kara’s look, the concern in her eyes, made her want to die, right then, because she would die happy.  “I’m sorry … did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Lena sniffled, not bothering to wipe her eyes.  “You’re doing everything right.”

Kara looked relieved.  She leaned down and kissed her.  “Do you still want to…?”

Lena smiled.  “I want to take care of you, for once, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Kara looked quizzical.  “But I.. I really, really enjoy taking care of you.”

Lena stroked her cheek.  “I know.  But you never let me.”

Kara, still straddling her, shifted uncomfortably.  “It’s just … I’m afraid it’s too much for me.”

Lena frowned.  “What do you mean?”

Kara sighed.  “Well, it’s… my super-senses,”  she explained.  “Most of the time, I can keep a little bit of a wall up, and only let things in when I decide to.  When I’m turned on, and I’m with someone, it’s… it’s different.”

“Different how?”  Lena was intrigued now.

“I can’t really keep my walls up.  I experience everything, and uh… well, it all gets received as…”  She trailed off, trying to find the words.

Lena couldn’t believe it.  “So literally everything is stimulating?”

Kara nodded vigorously.  “Like you wouldn’t believe.  And you …”  Kara bit her lip.  “You are a real feast for my senses.  The way you smell, the sounds you make, the way your skin feels… I can hear your heartbeat and it matches your pulse when I’m inside you and … and the rush of your blood in your veins, I can hear it, and it’s like… it’s like music…”  She saw a little blush start to creep into Kara’s face.  She was getting aroused just talking about it, clearly. 

Lena gave her a naughty grin.  “You’ve piqued my curiosity, you know.  Keep talking.”

Kara giggled a little.  “Well, that’s … that’s it, really.  Like I said before, you’re so beautiful when you come, it… I can’t help it.  When I’m feeling that way, it’s just really easy.”

“Are you feeling that way now?”

Kara nodded. 

Lena reached up with both hands, and ran her fingertips lightly down Kara’s face, down her neck, down her shoulders.  Kara closed her eyes and gave out a little sigh.  Lena’s heartbeat picked up it’s pace.  “That sound you just made,” she murmured soft and low, “it made my heart beat faster, did you hear that?”

Kara nodded. 

Lena persisted.  “Did you like the sound of that?”

Again, she nodded, biting her lip.  Lena tugged at the collar of the Oxford shirt that Kara wore.  “Take this off, please?”  she requested.  “I want to look at you.”

Kara removed it, along with the simple white bra edged with lace that she wore underneath.  Lena loved Kara’s body, and her desire thumped in her chest at the sight of her soft breasts with their already rock-hard nipples.  She reached up again and took them in hand, ever so gently caressing them.  She brushed her thumbs over the sweet, rosy nipples, just once, and Kara moaned out loud, and trembled so hard that Lena stopped.  “Did… you just…?”

“Almost,” Kara answered, her breath growing thick.  “I told you, it doesn’t take much.”

“You’re incredible,”  Lena sighed, and it took all her restraint not to repeat the touch and watch Kara convulse on top of her.  She brushed her fingers down the flat of Kara’s stomach then, and watched her tremble and moan again.  “Take your pants off, please?”

Kara hesitated.

“You wouldn’t deny me on my birthday, would you?”

Kara shook her head.  She slipped out of her jeans and her frilly boyshorts, and resumed her position, straddling Lena, who was gazing at her with wonder.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,”  Lena declared.  She trailed her fingers up Kara’s thighs and watched the little hairs all over her skin stand up.  “Do you know how wet you’re making me?”  she asked, her voice husky.

Kara’s eyes were closed now.  “Yes,”  she panted.  “I can smell it… oh….”  She was shaking, struggling to hold on.  “You smell so good…”

Lena was struggling too, trying to rein in the involuntary urge to grind against her and end it too soon.  She eyed the thatch of dark blond hair between Kara’s legs, then brushed her fingers just beside it, watching Kara shiver.  “What happens if I touch you there?”  She could see that Kara was already dripping wet.

Kara wound her fingers into her own hair and gripped it hard.  “I don’t know,” she panted. 

“Can I find out?”  She’d never seen anything like this.  She had to know.

Kara hesitated and then nodded. “OK… I warn you, though … not to…”  She was breathing hard, shaking with the effort of trying not to let go.  “...not to be too disappointed if I just… finish right away.”

“Disappointment isn’t really the word I would reach for,”  Lena chuckled, and she reached forward, and slipped a finger into Kara, feeling her arousal running hot and slick onto her hand.  Kara groaned her name, and then convulsed against her touch, keening and panting and clutching at her hair.

Lena looked at her and marveled at the ease with which this sweet, gentle, powerful creature came apart in her hands.  She held her finger still, let her finish the tremors of orgasm, and then grinned.  “Beautiful.”

Kara was flushed, panting, her eyes shining.  “I told you.  It’s over too fast.”

“Oh, we’re not done,”  Lena corrected her.  “I’m going to keep this right here.”

Kara looked ecstatic.  “It… it’s… having you inside me is…”  She began to move slowly up and down on the finger inside her.  “I can feel the pulse in your fingers, and… and the ridges of your fingerprints…”

“That’s it,” Lena whispered, encouraging her.  “Take what you want, at the pace that you want it.  I’m just going to hold you, exactly like this.  I’m going to stay inside you and let you do it, alright?”  She placed her other hand on Kara’s hip, marveling at the tension in those muscles.

Kara moaned again, slowly, softly fucking herself on Lena’s firm, strong finger.  She would pause after each careful thrust to tremble and release a deep, long sigh.  “Oh … Lena… keep talking … your voice…”

“You are the most beautiful-”  She curled her finger just slightly and Kara cried out.  “-amazing, sensual thing I have ever seen in my life.”  She pushed a little deeper and felt the muscles inside her quiver and clutch, and Kara was giving forth wordless cries now.  The neighbors were probably considering calling the police and Lena didn’t care.  “Take what you want, that’s it…”  Lena felt the tension coiling inside Kara, and involuntarily moaned at the heat and intensity of Kara’s pleasure.

The sound of her moan pushed Kara over the edge a second time and she came again, with Lena’s finger still inside her.  The force of it was stunning;  she convulsed like an earthquake, tightening around Lena’s finger, crying out Lena’s name again and again.  Her head was thrown back and her mouth slack, fingers tangled in her own hair, eyes closed, with little tears slipping from their corners.

“Beautiful,”  Lena sighed again.  The word was woefully inadequate.  She was sublime.  And Lena was allowed to be inside her.

“This…”  Kara took a deep breath.  “This was supposed to be about you,”  she sighed breathlessly, and Lena could tell she felt selfish.  She wiped the tears from Kara’s cheeks.

“But it _was_ about me,” Lena whispered tenderly.  “This was what I wanted.  For a while now.  To be inside you and feel you come for me.  I couldn’t understand why you never wanted to.”  She stroked Kara’s messy hair.  “Are you ok?  Was it alright?”

Kara nodded.  “It was so much … but it was ... wonderful.”  She leaned forward and laid her bare chest against Lena’s, her legs still tucked underneath her. 

Lena lightly dragged her nails down Kara’s back and felt her delicious shudder again.  “I want to explore you,” she whispered.  “I want to learn you.  I want to feel every inch of you and know what it does.  Can we try?”

Kara kissed her, long and deep.  “Yes.”

They stayed that way for a little while.  After a bit, Lena asked, “How do you know you’re a Virgo?”

Kara giggled.  “What?”

“You were born on Krypton.  Did Jeremiah calculate your exact birthday?”

Kara looked sad for a moment.  “No,” she admitted.  “We chose September 22nd to celebrate my birthday because that was the date I came to live with the family.”

Lena nodded, and tucked that information away.  She kissed Kara again.

“So,”  Kara murmured against the side of her neck, after a long quiet filled only with their breathing.  “Good birthday?”

Lena squeezed her shoulders.  “Best birthday.  Ever.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**The First Time Lena Saved Kara With Her Very Own Ray Gun**

There were many times in the past five months when Lena had stopped to marvel at how ordinary and human a thing it was to date a superhero.  How they would bicker over what to watch on Netflix and whether to put butter on their popcorn, how they would hold hands on the deck of the boat when they went out on it, or go clothes shopping together.  How they’d hold each other after incredible sex and kiss, and joke, and sometimes cry.  How they’d go to art galleries and Kara would wrinkle up her nose at some piece of abstract expressionist brilliance on the wall and Lena would tease her that they should go find her some paintings of fruit that she would enjoy better. 

This, however, was not one of those times.

She was moving briskly down a darkened corridor in the underground of Cadmus’s laboratories.  Her mother had informed her that she was keeping Kara here and that she would only release her if she delivered the compounds she needed for the new bomb she was developing.  So here she was.  She wore all black and had a black flak jacket on.  She had a backpack which contained several items, none of which were the compounds.  She also had a rather large energy weapon slung over her shoulder.  It was shiny and silver and the barrel of it glowed blue and it packed a Class V laser; dangerous on its own, but she had also equipped it with a variable delivery system, so that the laser could be used by itself, or as a carrier for a variety of concentrated radiations.  A girl needed versatile accessories, after all.  She never knew what she might need, breaking into her mother’s underground lair.

She’d hung up the phone with her mother, her heart pounding and adrenaline filling her veins and all her neurons lighting up as the full force of her intellect began breaking down the best available options to her.  This gun was a prototype, but there was no question that it was the best she had.  She’d phoned Alex Danvers, told her where she was going, and said that she’d meet the DEO team there.  But Alex hadn’t arrived yet, and Lena couldn’t wait.  Alex would probably yell at her for cowboying like this, because Lena seen her do it to Kara, but she didn’t care.  It was all going to come down to Lena versus her mother anyway, and her mother wouldn’t be expecting Lena to be packing this kind of heat.  So she hacked the entry panel, gained her access, disabled the cameras, and moved forward.

She didn’t think about anything in the world, including the smoking trail behind her that was littered with black-clad guards, all in a state of temporary paralysis due one of her favorite settings.  Her only thought was finding Kara. 

When she did, she was in a steel cage, sick and pale with the effects of kryptonite.  Their eyes met.  Kara looked at the large, shiny silver ray gun and asked in a shaky voice, “Lena, what have you done?”

“Well,” her mother’s voice came from behind her, “what took you so long?  And did you really need to paralyze my _entire_ security staff to make your point?”

“Need to?”  Lena replied, incredulous.  “No, Mother.  But it was fun.”

Lillian gave her a cold smile.  “I’m assuming you’ve got what I asked for in that backpack.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you don’t get your pet alien back.”

Lena leveled the weapon at her.  “I think I will.”

Lillian shook her head.  “Lena.  Darling.  You’re not going to shoot me.”

She adjusted the setting on the weapon.  They stared each other down.  Lena’s heart broke every time it came to this; every time her mother played upon Lena’s decency to avoid reprisal for the awful ways she’d treated her.  Every time, it came down to a choice between her mother and whatever it was that stood between them.  Often times, she could outwit her.  Other times, she had no choice.  She chose her mother, and whatever it was, it paid the price. 

It would be different this time.  “No, mother.  You’re right.  I’m not going to shoot you. I’m going to shoot her.”  She turned toward the metal cage, pointed the gun at Kara, and pulled the trigger. 

The beam that poured from the gun was one of its variable settings; one that contained a focused beam of light that blended infrared and ultraviolet as well as the intervening spectrum, precisely duplicating the effects of sunlight and designed to counteract the effects of Kryptonite. 

The strength and color surged back into Kara’s body and she tore from the cage, and faster than Lena’s eyes could take in, Lena's mother was locked in one of the cages that had been empty a moment ago.  She turned back to Lena and looked at her, her breath heaving as it had done that time she’d thrown herself in front of a hurtling slab of marble to protect her.  “What is that gun?”

Lena smiled.  “Some girls say I love you with flowers.  Some girls say it with ray guns designed to neutralize kryptonite.”

Lillian was rattling at the bars of her cage.  “Lena!  Lena, you can’t leave me here like this.  Lena, I’m your mother.  How could you choose that _alien_ over me?”

Kara was looking at Lena with a small smile.  “Is she always like this?”

Lena nodded.  “Yeah, pretty much.”

Kara stepped closer to her.  “Did… did you just say you loved me?”

Lena smiled.  “I’m here, aren’t I?  I brought a ray gun, didn’t I?”

In a blink, Kara was at her side, gathering her in a tight embrace.  “I love you too,” she whispered in Lena’s ear.

They could hear the sounds of Alex and the DEO rushing the hallway.  They’d be here in a moment to make a proper arrest. 

“Yeah yeah,”  Lena whispered back.  “Don’t let it go to your head.”  She turned and looked over at her mother.  “I chose her over you because unlike you, she actually loves me.”

Horror dawned on Lillian Luthor’s face.  “You can’t mean–”

“Oh, but I do.”  Lena was thrilled.  For once, she was actually hitting Lillian with something that hurt.  “Supergirl and I, we’re a thing.  She loves me.  And I love her.  And in case you didn’t want to know, we have hot interspecies sex.  All the time.”

Kara blushed.  “Lena, stop.”

“I don’t care,” Lena answered wantonly.

Alex and the strike team came pouring through the door.  “Thanks for leaving it unlocked,” Alex said to Lena.

“Least I could do,” she replied.

Alex laid eyes on the gun, her face lighting up.  “Oh my God.  What is that?”

Lena grinned.  “I’ll let you come by and play with it sometime if you want.  I think you’d appreciate it.”

As Lena and Kara left together, Kara asked carefully, “You… you didn’t just say you loved me to upset your mother, did you?”

Lena shook her head.  “No.  I would never do that to you.”  She stopped and took Kara’s hand, giving her a serious look.  “I’m sorry it took these circumstances for me to realize that I felt that way, and to tell you.  But once it was clear to me how much you meant to me, and what it would do to me if I lost you, I realized I couldn’t wait another minute to tell you.”

Kara smiled, wrapped her arms around Lena’s waist, and kissed her.  They shot up into the sky together, and Kara brought her home.  There were many times when Lena had to marvel at how extraordinary a thing it was to date a superhero, like when she was being squired home in her arms, drifting over the tops of the swaying palms. 

“I love you,” she murmured again.

“I love you back,” Kara murmured in reply.

They drifted on into the sparkling night.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**The First Time Lena Figured Out How to Give While Receiving**

While they managed to make space for the intensity of what it was for Lena to explore Kara’s body directly, with kisses and touches, Kara still most preferred the pleasures of Lena’s face, body, scent, and voice when Kara delicately spun the thread of pleasure into a thick cord that drew her to one beautiful orgasm after another.

Lena, however, being Lena, had mused on this matter some more.

One night, Lena was stretched out in a chaise lounge on her terrace, and their kisses were growing in urgency.  As sighs fell like liquid from Kara’s lips, Lena knew that the heat between them was leading to where she’d hoped it would.  Kara gave out a little moan, and whispered between kisses, “I can taste the red wine on your tongue.”

She’d drunk that wine hours ago.  Lena knew that the fact that she could taste it meant that Kara was ready.

Lena tilted her head back, and Kara began kissing down her neck, her tongue darting over the skin in warm little trails.  Lena sighed softly.  Kara paused and looked up.  “Your skin,” she breathed.  “It tastes like…”

“Rosewater,” Lena supplied.

“Oh, Rao,” Kara whispered, and opened the buttons on Lena’s blouse, and made her way further down.  The cool breezes of evening caressed her bared skin, and Lena shivered at each gentle touch of Kara’s mouth.   


In a low, voice, smooth as silk, Lena began mumuring, her fingers stroking through Kara’s hair, some verses she’d memorized:

_ “Every day you play with the light of the universe. _

_ Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water, _

_ You are more than this white head that I hold tightly _

_ as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands.” _

Kara moaned softly at the sound and cadence of her voice, at the words, at the whole of it.  With careful, reverent fingers, she slid her hands around Lena’s back to unfasten her bra and liberate her from it.  Lena caught her breath as Kara’s lips moved down the swell of her breasts, her tongue stroking at the tender skin, when after a moment, she heard Kara moan, and look up again.  “You taste like…”

“Honeysuckles,” Lena supplied.

Kara moaned again.  “You were already delicious,” she breathed, “I can’t even…”  She surrendered to her hunger to taste Lena’s skin again.

She continued to murmur softly as Kara’s warm mouth worked tenderly, hungrily down and around her breast, working slowly toward her nipple:

_ “You are like nobody since I love you. _

_ Let me spread you out among yellow garlands. _

_ Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? _

_ Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.” _

Kara sighed, and Lena felt a beautiful shiver move through her powerful frame.  She sometimes was a talker during sex, and probably when Kara was feeling like this, anything would be stimulating to her, but Lena had gone to the trouble of memorizing something particularly beautiful.   


_ “You are here.  Oh, you do not run away. _

_ You will answer me to the last cry. _

_ Curl round me as though you were frightened–” _

Her recitation broke as Kara’s mouth closed around her nipple and sucked hungrily, accompanied by a whimper from someplace deep in Kara’s throat.  “Oh, Lena…”  she gasped.  “Orange blossoms… you taste like orange blossoms…”

Lena had employed a bevy of oils, different ones for each part of her body, in all the curves, all the ridges, wells and hollows where she knew Kara liked to play and tease with her lips and tongue.  Her breath escaped her for a few minutes under Kara’s attention to her sensitive breasts, but the carried on:

_ “Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle, _

_ and even your breasts smell of it. _

_ While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies _

_ I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.” _

And then as she began to move down the slope of her ribcage to her flat belly, she heard another moan, felt another shudder, and the ecstatic cry from Kara’s lips, “Oh, Lena, oh… plums, plums and rasberries, you taste so…”  The thickness of her breathing was growing.  Delighted shivers raced up Lena’s back, joy at the sound of getting Kara so aroused without so much as laying a hand on her.   


Their pleasure in each other spiraled upwards, Lena’s body a carefully laid map for Kara’s tongue to revel and taste as she worked her way, ever soft, ever gentle, toward the sweet, slick warmth of Lena’s sex.  Their murmurings and moanings overlapped as Kara moved down Lena’s belly, hips, inner thighs.

_ “...How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, _

_ my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. _

_ So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, _

_ and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans...” _

 

_ “Oh...vanilla… oh this isn’t fair…” _

 

_ “...My words rained over you, stroking you. _

_ A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. _

_ Until I even believe that you own the universe....” _

 

_ “Almond...Oh, Lena....” _

 

They quivered together for a moment.  Lena gripped Kara’s hair as she bent in to lick her, to drag her tongue through Lena’s wetness and lay sweet, warm kisses against her clit.

_ “I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels,  _

_ and rustic baskets of kisses….”   
_

Her voice was ragged and broken but she wouldn’t stop, she wouldn’t stop, not now, with the ecstasy she spread through Kara’s frame simply with her scented skin and savored words.

“Mmm,” Kara mumbled against her exquisitely tender flesh, “cherry…”

_ “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees,” _  Lena panted, and she felt Kara pause for a moment and then bury her mouth in her sex, devouring it as she came in a shower of trembling and groans down in the depths of her belly.

And in moments, Lena was also tumbling into glorious, brilliant orgasm, flaring like a sunrise between her thighs and flooding her with heat and light.   


“You do,” Kara sighed after a long pause.  She was still breathless. 

“I do what?” Lena asked.

“Do with me what spring does with the cherry trees.”

Lena smirked.  “Do I?”

“Mm,” Kara answered, resting her cheek against Lena’s thigh.  “You make me bloom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poetry Lena is reciting here is from the poem "Every Day You Play" by Pablo Neruda, one of the all-time sexiest most beautiful pieces of poetry ever written.


	7. Chapter 7

**First Shovel Talk**

Lena fully expected that she would be the recipient of the first shovel talk of the relationship.  She also fully expected that it would be delivered by Alex, Kara’s older sister, a DEO black ops agent, and a sentimental marshmallow capable of killing a man with her index finger.  Lena was charmed by their relationship, how much caring and protectiveness and prickly-sweet sibling love there was between them.  (She had no frame of reference for it.  Lex had been nothing like that.)  It was reasonable to think it would come from Alex, full of kindness and love and murderous impulses toward those who would threaten her loved ones.

However, she was wrong.

Alex’s shovel talk actually came second.

The first shovel talk of their relationship was delivered to Lena’s mother, by Kara.  Alex had videotaped the entire thing and was now sitting in Lena’s office, showing it to her.

Kara was standing in front of Lillian Luthor’s plexiglass prison in the lower intestinal tract of the DEO.  She couldn’t quite see Kara’s face but her mother was cold and immovable as an iceberg.

“You don’t know a damn thing,” her mother was saying.

“I know that you tried your best to turn Lena into a sociopath like you, and Lionel, and Lex.  I know it didn’t work.”

Lillian scoffed.  She’d had some time to regain her composure since her initial capture.  “I’m going to get out of her sooner or later, you know.”

Kara stopped, hands on her hips.  “Lillian, you don’t scare me.  You’re not getting out. But if you do, I’m going to tell you right now… You can’t hurt me, and you  _ won’t _ hurt Lena.”

“Is that a threat?”  Lillian asked, frosty and imperious.  “That doesn’t seem like your style, Supergirl.  I thought you were all about truth, justice, and the American way.”

“It’s not a threat,” Kara told her, with a deadly quiet to her voice that Lena had never heard.  “I’m just letting you know how things are going to be.  You can’t hurt me, and you  _ won’t  _ hurt her,” she repeated.  “If I ever even think, if it even crosses my mind, that you might be responsible for any danger or harm that might befall her, they’re going to be removing what’s left of you from this prison with a garden hose.”

Lena’s mouth dropped open.  She covered it with her hand, trying not to shriek in surprise or laugh out loud because frankly, she was both amused and appalled that Kara would talk to her mother that way.  Not to say that she didn’t deserve it.  She just never imagined the day would come when she’d have an alien lover who would threaten to turn her mother into liquid waste.

She watched Kara turn on her heel with a dramatic swirl of her cape, and stride away out of camera range.

Lena was in shock, half laughing, half discomfited.  “Why… why did you show this to me, Alex?”

Alex gave her a deadly serious look.  “My sister doesn’t talk like that.  And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing that she did.  Hell, I threaten to kill people so often it’s like breathing.  But Kara?”  Alex shook her head. “She doesn’t do that.”  Alex stepped a little closer to Lena.  “I like you, Lena.  You seem to make my sister happy.  And I enjoy getting to play with all your guns and your other little tech toys.  But you have my sister so head over heels for you, she’s acting differently than I’ve ever seen her.”

Lena didn’t break under Alex’s stony gaze, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t sweating a little under her understated gray Chanel suit.    


“Again- it’s not a bad thing.  But it means that she’s more serious about you than I’ve ever seen her.  So.  You’d better not break her heart.”  She held up a finger, close to Lena’s face.

“I know about your index finger and what it can do,” Lena said calmly.  “And don’t worry.  I have nothing but the most honorable intentions toward your sister.”

“Not just intentions,” Alex pressed.  “Actions.  You’re going to continue to give her your best.  Your best you.  No doing whatever shitty things you did with other girls.”

Lena nodded, refusing to step back and allow Alex to see that she was at all intimidated.  “Of course.  She deserves nothing less.”

Alex took a deep breath, smiled, and nodded approvingly.  “Good.  I’m glad we understand each other.”  She gave Lena a companionable pat on the shoulder.  “I’ll see you at next game night?”

Lena mustered a smile.  “Of course.”

After the door closed behind Alex, Lena sank into her chair with a deep sigh, trying to figure out which part of what had just happened had her feeling more disconcerted.


	8. Chapter 8

**The First Time Kara Cried on Lena's Shoulder**

Lena bided her time before telling Kara that Alex had paid her a visit.  She wasn’t unfamiliar with watching someone level those types of threats -- she had grown up Luthor, after all, and sometimes as a child, she’d slept with a kitchen knife under her pillow because she was so petrified of one member of her family or another.  It was just strange hearing that come out of Kara.  Her gentle, kind, sunny, optimistic Kara.   


She didn’t hate it, exactly.  She just wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Finally, after a Sunday trip to wine country, they were driving back.  Lena had chauffeurs and whatnot, but this was the kind of day that she preferred to drive herself.  They were in her shiny, charcoal grey BMW with the top down and the breezes blowing on their skin.  They both had their hair pulled back in tight little buns to contend with the wind better, and Kara wore some big, dark sunglasses.  Lena had the thought that she looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn today, particularly back at the vineyards when she’d been sipping chardonnay.   


They pulled up at a lookout along the highway that ran down the coast, looking out onto the water for a few minutes.  Kara was taking snaps for her Instagram.  Lena watched her, her pretty face, her gentle smile, her Kara, looking at the blushing sky and photographing the luminous clouds and the rolling hills.  She slipped up behind Kara and slid her arms around Kara’s waist.

“Kara, can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“Why did you say those things to my mother?”

She felt Kara stiffen.

“I’m not angry,” Lena assured her.  “I just want to know.”

“Alex told you?”

“Yes.”

Kara was quiet for a long time after she tucked her phone back in her pocket.  Still looking out over the coast and the water, she finally said, “Once, I lost everything.  My whole world.  My family, my friends.  My culture.  Its music, its architecture, its religion, its poetry, its language.  My cousin knows a little Kryptonian but only my aunt is really fluent.  Everything and everyone I loved was gone.  And I was small.  I was powerless.  I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

Lena embraced her tighter.

“Now, here I am.  I’m on this adopted world, with adopted family, and a whole new life that I built out of whole cloth.  And I’m one of the most powerful people on earth.”  She turned around now, and faced Lena.  “What good am I if I don’t protect the things that matter to me?”

Lena looked at her, her glassy eyes welling up with tears, her lip that she was trying so hard to keep from trembling.  She stroked Kara’s cheek, trying to imagine, really imagine, for the first time, the depth of Kara’s loss.  Lena had lost her birth family, yes.  She’d been displaced and bounced through a few foster homes before being adopted by the Luthors.  And that had been a home full of terrors, cold madness, fears that no child should have to know.  But the idea of the entirety of her world crumbling into fire was so massive, she could barely comprehend it.

“Lena, you’ve become part of me.  You’ve become part of my life, my heart, my family.  I’m not letting anything take you away from me.  I’m sorry if it upset you that I said what I said, but I’ll never take it back.  She has to know that you’re under my protection, and that’s a duty that I don’t take lightly.”  Kara lifted her chin now, summoning some of her Supergirl pride and authority, though she was still on the verge of tears.

Lena kissed her chin.   


“I lost my whole world once.  You’re my world now, and I’m not losing you,” she whispered. And then she bent her head and rested her chin on Lena’s shoulder.  She shuddered only a little, but then a moment later, Lena felt hot tears against her shoulder.  She stroked Kara’s back and held her while she cried without a sound.   


“It’s okay, Kara.  I wouldn’t have you any other way than this.  Sometimes I forget the magnitude of what you lost, and it makes me take things too lightly.”  She kissed the side of Kara’s neck.  “Please forgive me.”

Kara lifted her head and looked at Lena.  Her eyes were still red and glassy.  “You’re not angry?”

Lena shook her head.  “For loving me?  Wanting to keep me safe?  Of course not.”  She gently kissed her mouth and said softly, “Kara, you are the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.  I don’t want you to take anything back, and I don’t want you to apologize for what you feel and what you did.”  She kissed her again.  “After all, I shot and paralyzed about twenty men to get you out of Cadmus, so…”

Kara smiled through her tears, and sniffled a little.

Lena hugged her close.  “You’re the closest to perfect I’m ever going to find,” she whispered.  “Don’t ever question that.”  She pulled back and they shared an affectionate look.  Then Lena pointed toward the car.  “Come on, let’s go home.  I think there’s a jacuzzi and a great big bed and some Netflix with our name on it.”

Kara nodded.  Lena drove, and they held hands all the way back to National City.


	9. Chapter 9

**The First Time Lena Got a Taste**

Kara needed love, more than anyone Lena had met except maybe herself.  Lena was comfortable enough with liking and enjoying sex, but in her own way, she was as uncomfortable with being so much on the receiving end of it as Kara was.  It was part of why she’d employed so much creativity in bed, playing with all of Kara’s sensitivities and discovering their little peculiarities.  Despite the fact that Kara enjoyed giving, on an actual physical level, Lena was still not satisfied and wanted to find a way to give back.   


She could get her superhero girlfriend off with all sorts of means, and that was fun.  Kara became like bit of a play toy.  _  Let’s see if smoky jazz makes you come faster than Sarah McLachlan.  Let’s see if I can make you come just by stripping in front of you and talking to you.  Let’s see how many times I can get you off just by kissing the small of your back, or between your shoulder blades.   _ There was something seductive and fascinating about that.

Nevertheless, sometimes, she missed the simple pleasures of making love to a woman the way she was accustomed to doing; stroking her, tasting her.  Kara was sometimes able to enjoy having Lena’s fingers inside her, but often it was simply too intense a thing and she didn’t know how to manage the input.  But it got Lena thinking, because Lena did a lot of thinking.

Kara needed to receive some love tonight.  They had faced some challenges lately and Kara, despite having the courage of her convictions, needed love and reassurance.  Lena had been considering what means she might use to give that to her.  They’d spent some time in the hot tub together, and now Kara was relaxed and affectionate, wrapped in a thick robe next to Lena on the sofa.  Lena was nestled close to her, nibbling gently on her ear while she clicked around the various selections on the cable, trying to pick a movie that was suitable for her mood and that they hadn’t already seen.  “Kara,” she murmured into her ear, “I’d like to try something.”

Those words were nearly always Lena’s introduction to whatever creative means of stimulation she wanted to try, and the simple utterance was enough to get Kara to draw a sharp little breath.  “What’d you have in mind?”  Kara asked, her voice soft.  She didn’t take her eyes off the screen, though, and continued to page around through the endless movies available to them.

“Well,” Lena purred, “I thought that I’d like to try something with the oils.”

“You’ve done that,” Kara answered, not disinterested but not yet sold. “I liked it, as I’m sure you remember.”

Lena smirked.  “Not on me,” she said.  “On you.”

Kara stopped clicking and paused for a moment.  “Go on.”

Lena kissed the side of her neck.  “I’ll be right back.”   


She got up and returned with two small bottles and a little dish like the ones that Japanese restaurants brought with sushi, to put the soy sauce in.  She sat back down beside Kara, and felt her eyes watching the process.  She dribbled a bit of clear vegetable oil into the dish, then dripped some of the other bottle in, a darker yellow oil with a pleasant smell.

“Smells like Christmas,” Kara commented.

“Eliza made pomander balls at Christmas, didn’t she?”

Kara nodded.  “Eliza used to take oranges and stick tons cloves into them till their entire surface was covered with them, then wrap them in ribbons and hang them around the house, on the tree, from the mantel…” 

“Clove oil,”  Lena said, and capped the bottle.  With one delicate finger, she mixed the oils together.  She held the finger up to Kara’s lips.  “Taste,”  she said gently.

Kara opened her mouth and caught Lena’s finger, licking the taste off of her finger.  “It’s nice,” she remarked lightly.

Lena sat watching her intently.

After a moment, Kara began screwing her face up a little.  “My um… tongue feels a little…”

“Numb?”  Lena supplied.

Kara nodded.  “Not completely, but…”  Slowly, a smile spread across her face as she realized what Lena had in mind.  She undid her robe and let it fall open, giving Lena access to the full splendor of her body.  It never failed to make Lena’s heart leap, that first moment of Kara’s nakedness.   


Lena dipped her finger into the dish, and gently applied the mixture to Kara’s breasts first, coating them with the scented oil and paying special attention to the nipples.  It was important to do it now, before she was too aroused and it became tricky to touch the more sensitive places on her body.  She then nudged Kara’s thighs apart and applied it everywhere she thought she might want to kiss.  She was gentle, but quick, so as to be sure it could do its work.  Kara squirmed a little.  “It tingles a little,” she sighed, but then after a few moments, she relaxed and released a breath.

“Is it ok?” Lena asked.

She nodded.

Lena kissed her, pushed the coffee table out of the way, and knelt between Kara’s legs, looking up at her.  She kissed Kara’s neck, and the side of her face, and her jawline, and whispered, “I’ve been dying to just work you over the way I’m used to doing.”

Kara sighed.  She ran her fingers through Lena’s still wet hair.   


“Dying,” she went on, “to show you how I feel about you, with my lips, and my tongue, and my teeth, and my fingers.”

She felt Kara begin to stir against her, and Lena continued to kiss down her neck toward her chest, breathing in the smell of her skin and the stronger smell of the clove oil that she’d spread all over those beautiful breasts.  She moved her mouth down the right one, and kissed, and licked a little, tasting cloves, then paused, looking up.  “Is that good?”

Kara sighed and nodded.

“It’s not too much?”

Kara shook her head.

She braced her hands on Kara’s thighs, and felt her strong grip on her shoulders as she was allowed to finally, without restraint, worship these flawless, soft breasts.  She kissed the swell, licked down and around, scraped her teeth over them, lightly.  Kara was starting to make little whimpering noises.  The oil was doing just enough, without completely numbing her of all sensation.  It was perfect.  She paused a moment before taking a stiffening nipple into her mouth and feeling Kara arch into her hungry kiss.  She placed her hands on Kara’s back and encouraged her movements, listened to her moans, and was delighted at the feel of her pleasure.  The flexing and extending of those back muscles under her hands, the quickening of those rosy nipples against her tongue.  The immediacy of it was exciting.  Having her this way was exciting.  _  Finally,  _ she thought.   _ Finally. _

She placed a hand on Kara’s other breast.  It was warm, soft, and slick with oil, and she traced its contours with her fingers.  She could feel Kara’s skin becoming warmer, could see the little flush in her cheeks, the little glow in her face that told Lena she was crossing into that place where she couldn’t filter her inputs anymore.  “Lena,” she sighed.   


Lena smiled, closed her eyes, and lost herself in that for a moment, her own desire slowly smoldering as she sucked on Kara’s breast and listened to her soft moaning and sighing.  


“Your heart is pounding,” Kara whispered.   


“I love this,” Lena whispered back.  She kissed a circle around the outside of Kara’s breast, noting how the skin felt taut and how it had become firmer and even maybe slightly larger under her attentions.

They stayed this way for a few minutes more, Lena wanting to enjoy this thoroughly in case Kara decided she didn’t want to do it again.  But Kara’s sighing was getting louder, and finally, she tipped Lena’s head back, looking down at her with smoky, lustful eyes, she whispered, “I’m ready …  I want you…. Would you…?”

Lena smiled.  Kara had trouble asking for things, in part because she rarely needed to.  She knew what Kara was asking for.  She was dying to give it to her.  She sank down onto the floor, and dipped her head.

The first moment of contact was electric and Kara released a loud moan when Lena carefully spread her open and dipped her tongue into her sweet wetness.  She tasted like clove, yes, but even beneath that strong flavor, she could taste  _ Kara _ .  She could taste her soft flesh, the arousal that she’d stoked from her, and it was glorious.  Kara froze, holding very still, and gripped the edge of the couch.

“I’m afraid I’m going to break your–”

“I don’t care,” Lena cut her off.  “It’s worth it.  Do whatever you need to do.”

She worked her tongue slowly from the bottom to the top of her sex, taking it all in, burning into her brain its contours and the feel and the smell and the taste of her.  Kara was moaning louder now.  It was a good thing Lena didn’t really have neighbors at her place in the hills.  Because when she reached Kara’s clit, and licked it softly, then took between her lips and sucked, the moaning became more full-throated and Lena had to keep herself from chuckling.   


She stopped and looked up.  “Are you alright?”  she asked.  “Is it too much?”

Kara shook her head.  “No, it’s… it’s just … not like anything else.”

Lena realized then that this had probably never been possible before.  She dipped her head back in, and continued to lick and kiss her, gently, carefully.  She didn’t want to overload her and more than that, she wanted to go slow and easy and let her have this experience the way she deserved it; soft, sensual, loving.  She took her time, tasting every inch of her, reveling in being able to do this for her, being able to be in this most intimate place with her.  Being able to kiss her where she had never been able to be kissed before.  She was warm, and wet, and tender, responding to every soft kiss, every stroke of her tongue, every gentle, exploratory probe.  She destroyed the couch cushions she was gripping, but Lena couldn’t begin to care.  Anything in the world would be worth this.

“This is how it feels when you do this for me,” she told Kara softly, in between kisses.

“I can see why you like it,”  she panted.

Lena smiled, and quickened her pace a little.  Her thighs were trembling in sympathy with Kara’s.  She wanted to feel her come.  She wanted to bring her there.  Her mouth devoured Kara, drank in the taste of her, her tongue moving faster against the hard, slick little knot of her clit.  Kara was holding hers whole body stiff now, letting Lena’s mouth drive her into the paroxysms that were close at hand.

“Oh, Lena,”  Kara cried. “Oh, I’m going to–”

She shuddered then, and cried out Lena’s name, and bucked against her, her hips thrusting desperately.   She cursed.  She destroyed another couch cushion.  She trembled.  And then slowly, she calmed.  Lena remained still, allowing her to put herself back together before touching her any more.  When she was satisfied that Kara seemed settled, she undid her own robe, climbed into her lap, and put her arms around her neck.

“Was that good?” she asked.

Kara nodded.  “It was.  I mean… it felt amazing, but… it was also… I felt close to you,” she managed after a moment.  “I’ve never been able to have that.”

Lena nodded.  “I thought as much.”

“And,” Kara went on, idly kissing Lena’s bared shoulder.  “I could tell you enjoyed it.”

“Very much,” Lena sighed.

She felt Kara’s fingers wander up her thigh and dip into her, which made her gasp a little.  “I see that,” Kara said with a little smirk.   


Lena smirked back.  “Not like you needed to check to know that.”

They kissed softly.   


“I love you,” Kara murmured.

“I love you,”  Lena murmured back.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” Kara whispered.

Lena’s eyes closed and she whimpered a little.  “Don’t you want to rest first?”

“I’m a superhero.  I don’t get tired.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to spaceshipsarecool for the adorable prompt idea. :D

**The First Time Kara Spoke Kryptonian in Bed**

Lena woke up early, with the sighing of the traffic from the freeway quiet and distant.  Kara, warm, solid and smooth, lay curled around her.  Kara was quite possibly the best big spoon on planet Earth.  She yawned a little too loudly and shifted against her embrace, hoping that Kara would wake and maybe want to make love.  For all the elaborate measures Lena took in bed with her, and she enjoyed them all, she sometimes just liked it best when they had soft, quiet sex early in the morning when they were half in the fog of sleep, and the stars were just starting to burn out and the sky was pale.  When she would just let Kara bring her that sweet, drowsy pleasure and enjoy the fact of what that did for Kara.

“Mmm,” Kara sighed against the back of her neck, “Lena.”

Lena smiled.  “Morning, Kara.”

“Lena, _rri_ _p kolir vahdhah mishidh_ ,” Kara murmured.  She pulled herself tighter against Lena’s back.

Lena chuckled.  “What?”

“ _Rr_ _i_ _p kolir vahdhah mishidh_ ,” Kara repeated sleepily.  Her breath made warm patterns against the bare skin of Lena’s shoulder.

 _Hmm,_ Lena thought. _That must be what Kryptonian sounds like._  She didn’t know what she’d expected it to sound like, but she was surprised to find it sounded like someone had thrown Russian, Arabic and English into a blender and set it to frappe.  Kara had never spoken Kryptonian around her before, so her curiosity stirred.

“You’re so nice and warm,” Lena commented, wondering how long she could keep sleepy Kara engaging with her in her own language.

Kara kissed the curve where Lena’s neck met her shoulder.  “ _Chao rr_ _i_ _p nim kaol_ ,”  she said, and giggled a little.

Lena found it hard not to grin at how adorable this was, despite not having the slightest idea what her alien girlfriend was saying.  “Do you know what I’d like to do, Kara?”

Kara continued to sleepily kiss the back of Lena’s neck, and replied, “ _Rriv rrip kehp raozh rrehd kh_ _a_ _p sem rriv, Kara?_ ”  The only word Lena understood was “Kara,” but from the cadence of her reply, it sounded like Kara was mimicking her.  It was funny, but there was a slight inflection to the way she said her own name, an accent to it that Lena had not heard before when she spoke in English.  “ _Zha, kh_ _a_ _p kehp zha raozh._ ”  One of her hands started to wander up Lena’s belly toward her breasts.

Lena recognized a playful, naughty tone in that last utterance.  “Kara,” she finally said, laughing, “you need to wake up a little more.  It’s great if you want to talk dirty to me, but it doesn’t do me any good if it’s in Kryptonian.”

“Hm?”  Kara shifted, and her wandering hand paused in its travels.

“You’re talking to me in Kryptonian,” Lena repeated.

There was another confused silence behind her, as Kara woke up a little more, and then cleared her throat.  “Was I really?”

Lena nodded.  “Yeah,” she chuckled, and took Kara’s wandering hand, brought it to her mouth and kissed it.  “At least I’m pretty sure it was.  It didn’t sound like anything else I recognized.”  She disengaged and turned over so that she could face Kara. 

“Well,” Kara answered shyly, “I guess you should take that as a compliment.  It must mean I feel at home with you.”

Lena sometimes wished that she had the fortitude not to be so completely disarmed by Kara’s sweetness.  After moving through the world being mistrusted and prejudged because of her name, nothing was as addictive as someone trusting her so completely, as Kara did.  The vulnerability of it made her uncomfortable sometimes.  This, however, was not one of those times.  She kissed Kara’s chin.  “I’m glad.”

They spent a few moments sleepily kissing and running their hands down each other’s backs.  After a moment, though, Lena’s curiosity got the better of her and she pulled back.  “You said your name, when you were speaking Kryptonian,”  she remarked.  “It sounded a little different.  Like you said it with a different accent.”

Kara smiled.  “Well technically, the way I say it when I’m speaking English is the accent.  But yeah, it’s a little different.”

“Say it again?  For real?”  She wanted to know.  She wondered how many other people on Earth knew.

Kara pronounced it again for her. _Kar-ra_ , with a little trill to the r,  the vowel sounds resting just a little further back in the throat.  It was subtle, but it was definitely different.  Lena tried it a few times until she got it.  Kara was tickled that she was so interested.

“Teach me something else,”  Lena insisted.

“Hmm…”  Kara thought for a moment.  “ _Khap zhao rrip,_ ” she said finally.

Lena repeated it, or did her best.  Kara had to correct her a couple of times.

“What does it mean?” 

“I love you.”

Lena kissed her deeply.  “ _Khap zhao rrip_ ” she repeated.

Kara responded in kind.  “Your accent is so cute,” she sighed, “it’s really sexy.”  Then she whispered, “Try this one: _Zhaol vot kh_ _a_ _p_.”

Lena repeated it perfectly.  “What does it mean?”

Kara bit her lip, and her still-drowsy eyes managed to hold a little twinkle.  “It means, make love to me.”

Lena sighed and repeated it again.  “ _Zhaol vot kh_ _a_ _p_ ,” she sighed, and Kara nudged Lena onto her back and began to kiss her way down Lena’s chest.

Kara mumbled something in between Lena’s breasts that Lena couldn’t quite hear. 

“Kara,” she sighed, just like Kara had showed her.  A little trill to the r, vowels sitting back in the throat.   _Kar-ra._

Kara made a little soft, moaning noise from somewhere in her chest.  “No-one says my name like that anymore,” she sighed.

“Now I do.”

As Kara worked her over in her usual gentle but intensely focused way, Lena kept whispering her name, sighing it, over and over, in just the right way.   _Kar-ra, Kar-ra, Kar-ra._  It did something to her, hearing her name that way.  Lena liked being able to do things to Kara.

Kara would teach Lena other words and phrases (“My beloved”, “I missed you”, “Take off your clothes,” and so on), and it became a part of the fabric of their intimacy, something that they did in private, to create another degree of closeness between them.  Kara seemed to enjoy teaching her and hearing it spoken back to her.  But nothing seemed to hit her so deeply as when they would lay together, holding each other, and Lena would whisper in her ear, _Kar-ra... Kar-ra... Kar-ra..._  


	11. Chapter 11

**The First Time Lena Hurt Kara Without Meaning To**

 

“LENA!”

Kara’s voice had come up from the basement with such a booming authority, Lena nearly dropped her drink.  She descended the stairs to find Kara standing with her hands on her hips, tensed up as if for a fight.

“What the hell is this?”  Kara demanded, looking at the giant springloaded, refrigerated drawer filled with layers flat mechanical shelving lined with petri dishes.

Lena smiled mischievously.  “Ah.  That.  My treasure chest.”   

Kara had gone down into the basement lab to look for the lenses for Lena’s telescope, because the two of them were at her place in the hills and felt like doing a little stargazing.  Kara had poked around, not really sure what drawer she was supposed to be looking for, and accidentally stumbled on this.

She saw Kara’s eyes scanning the labels:  Green Martian, White Martian, Metahuman Type 1S, on and on, row after row.  

“What is it?”  she demanded again, more quietly, but with a simmering anger that made Lena nervous.

“They’re DNA samples,” she responded lightly.  She walked over and moved to close the drawer.  “Alien DNA samples.  I keep them, just in case.”

“There’s Kryptonian in there,” Kara pressed.  The question went unspoken.   _ Is it mine? _

Lena sighed.  “Yes, it’s yours.  You leave your DNA all over me every time you come over here.  What’s the problem?”

Kara shook a little, and the little crease formed between her brows that she got when she was frustrated.  “Yes, but you might have asked me before you decided to refrigerate and catalog it.”

Lena shrugged.  She wasn’t sure she saw the distinction.  “Come on, Kara, you know I’m not doing anything nefarious.  I just like to have these things on hand because you never know.”

“You never know when you might need to develop a biological weapon, you mean?”  Kara snapped.

“Come on, Kara.  I thought we were past that.”  Lena’s heart sank.  Kara didn’t really believe that, she knew.  But it hurt nevertheless.  That suspicion that she’d had to contend with for her entire life.

“Then why couldn’t you ask me if it was alright?”

“My entire house is covered with your DNA, Kara.  I really didn’t think it was a big deal.”

But Kara was storming around the lab now, pacing the way she did when she got very agitated.  “No, you did.  You did think it was a big deal because if you didn’t think it was a big deal, you would have mentioned it.  You would have asked.  You were afraid I would say no, so you just took it and catalogued it and left it at that.”

Lena’s shoulders slumped.  “Look, Kara, if it’s really upsetting you, I’ll destroy the sample.  Like I said, it was just a precaution.”

Kara grew more frustrated though.  “Lena!  It’s not about the sample!  I would be perfectly fine with you having a sample of my DNA on file, _ if you had asked me first!  _  You’re a scientist!  You’re my girlfriend!  It would be fine!”

Lena marched over to the drawer and took out the dish with Kara’s sample and threw it onto the floor where it shattered into pieces.  “I’m not keeping it, alright?  It’s going out!  There.  Are you happy?”

“No!”  Kara shouted.  “You really don’t get this?  It’s not about the sample!  I don’t care!  I care that you took it and lied to me!  That you kept something personal like that without telling me.  God forbid your mother, or someone else, knew that you had this resource and came looking for it?  I had a right to know it existed and you ignored that right and made your own decision about it!”

Lena couldn’t help herself.  She went into her defensive crouch.  “Kara, you’re overreacting.”

“No, I’m not!”  Kara slammed a fist down on one of the steel tables.  It collapsed under her fist.  She stopped, a horrified look on her face.  “Oh, god, Lena,” she said, “I’m really sorry.”  She took a few deep breaths and backed away from the table.

Lena herself was unnerved, too.  She knew of course that Kara possessed that strength, but she’d never seen her get angry that way.  She moved to deflect.  “See?  I didn’t tell you because you’d get angry like this!  I don’t… I don’t know if I feel … safe in this relationship…”

Kara shook her head, and whatever regret she’d felt for destroying that table dissolved in the heat of her stare.  “No.  You don’t get to do something shady, you don’t get to lie to me, and then use my anger at your lie to justify your lying.  That doesn’t work.”  She strode toward the door.  “I’m sorry Lena, you need to get your head around what the problem actually was, here.  It wasn’t the damn sample.  You don’t feel safe with me all of a sudden?  Fine.  I’m going home.”  And she saw tears welling up in Kara’s eyes as she brushed past and headed toward the stairs to leave.

Tears pricked at Lena’s eyes too, hot and stubborn.  She didn’t understand how this had gone so wrong.  She was used to being disbelieved, of being suspected of everything, because of who her family was.  So she allowed herself to operate in certain ways, under the guise of avoiding trouble or suspicion.  It was backfiring badly right now, though.  She reflected that her default approach of secrecy and dispensing information on a need to know basis was maybe not the healthiest way to conduct a relationship.

She wanted to ask Kara not to go, but she wasn’t sure she should.  Maybe she needed to take some time to parse this out.  Maybe Kara needed to cool off a little.  She watched her from the living room window, a tiny speck against the sky, disappearing fast, and taking a little bit of Lena’s heart with her.  Lena was vulnerable in this relationship alright, but not physically.  She knew in her bones that Kara would never hurt her that way.  It occurred to her to wonder whether Kara felt the same way, whether she knew in her bones that Lena would never hurt her, or whether her seemingly trivial lie had thrown that into question.

Or maybe it was that Kara was hurt because by lying, Lena wasn’t so much saying “Kara, you can’t trust me,” as much as she was saying, “Kara, I still don’t trust you.”

She wiped her eyes and sat down to send a text:  
_ Let’s take tonight to cool off.  I think I understand why you’re upset and I’m sorry.  You don't need to reply now.  Please call me in the morning. _

And then:  
_ I love you. _


	12. Chapter 12

**The First Time Kara Hurt Lena on Purpose**

 

They sat at opposite ends of Kara’s fold-out couch.  Kara had agreed to let her come over.  The silence was awkward, and Lena understood that it was incumbent on her to fix the situation.  

“Kara,” she began, her tone careful, “I want you to understand that I … I have always struggled with trusting people.  It comes, in part, from being judged–”

“Which I never do to you, and never have,”  Kara pointed out.

Lena took that one on the chin because she knew it was true.  “You’re right,” she admitted.  “I’m sorry.  I developed coping mechanisms, and they aren’t all healthy.  But… you know that I would never do anything to hurt you, don’t you?”

Kara looked her for a long while.  “Of course,” she said after a moment.  “Like I said, it wasn’t the sample, it was the secrecy.  It was that you didn’t ask me or let me know you were doing it.”

Lena leaned forward, took a deep breath, and grabbed Kara’s hand.  “I want you to know something else, too.  I want you to know that I trust you.  I have a hard time with trusting people and I was reverting to old habits here, but I do trust you.”

Kara didn’t pull away, but she didn’t squeeze back either.  She just looked at her, her stare cautious, her eyes looking slate-blue in the low light.  “You don’t feel… unsafe?” she asked stiffly.

Lena closed her eyes.  God, she regretted that, maybe more than anything else she’d said.  “Kara,” she sighed.  “Please, I am so, so sorry that I said that.  You weren’t … you weren’t wrong to get angry and you were right, I was using it as an excuse.  But I trust you.  I know with every fiber of my being that you would never hurt me.”

Kara’s chin was thrust forward, her lips pressed together.  “I want to believe you.  You have to understand how much it hurt me when you said that.  I have spent my entire life, from the time I arrived here, having to work so hard to contain my emotions, to be so, so gentle with people, so careful… physically hurting someone is my worst fear, and you threw it back in my face.”

Lena grabbed Kara’s other hand now, and stared at her.  “Then… then don’t be so gentle with me,” she said, and then took a quick breath, letting the implications of that sit between them.

Kara’s brow furrowed.  “What … what do you mean?”

Lena took a deep breath.  “I mean, don’t be so gentle with me.  I don’t know how else to show you that I feel safe with you than to ask you to let go.  You can be rough with me, I’m not made of glass.  I can take it.  And I trust you, Kara, I trust you to know your own strength and not go too far.”

Kara looked at her, stunned and hesitant.  “I … Lena, I don’t….”   


Lena squeezed her hands.  “Kara, I miss you.  When I couldn’t fall asleep next to you last night...  I don’t want this to come between us.  I have a struggle with trust but please, Kara.  I do trust you.”

Kara squeezed back, gently.  “Lena, I… my biggest worry with you was always that wouldn’t let me all the way in.”

“I’m trying!”  Lena whispered, passionate in her own defense.  “I’m trying, Kara.  Please!  Let me.”  She shifted closer, placed a hand on Kara’s face.  “I won’t ever forgive myself for hurting you, but please, Kara.  Please, I’m begging you.”

Kara flinched at her touch, then closed her eyes and relaxed into it.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said in a low, strangled voice.

Lena traced the pad of her thumb over Kara’s cheekbone.  “You can hurt me a little.  It’s alright.”  She wanted her to see, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she felt safe in Kara’s arms.  “I’m so sorry I lied to you, Kara … it was because I was afraid you’d say no … it was because that was just the way I was used to doing things for so long… But I love you, and I promise you, I’m never going to do that again.”

Kara’s chin trembled.  “I’m still angry, Lena.”  But Lena knew that she hated this too, and wanted to forgive her, and be close to her again.  Kara took hold of her wrist and pulled the hand away from her face.  “I’m still hurt.  I don’t want to just hurt you physically to punish you for hurting me emotionally.”

Lena shook her head.  “That’s not it.  It’s just that I’m not going to hold back with you anymore, and I don’t want you to, either.”

Kara muttered a curse under breath and grabbed Lena’s waist and yanked her close.  God, Kara was so strong, she just moved Lena like she was a ragdoll.  “You have to promise me,”  she hissed, her face close to Lena’s.

Lena’s eyes went wide.  “I promise,” she swore to Kara.  “I won’t hold back any more.”

Kara’s hands squeezed her waist tighter.  “Promise,” she pressed again, her voice thick with emotion.  

“I promise,” Lena answered without hesitation.

Kara kissed her then, roughly, hard enough to bruise her lips, and Lena moaned against her mouth, and they were tangled in hot, angry kisses on the couch, Kara’s mouth pushing into hers with demanding intensity.  Kara’s tongue swept along the inside of her mouth, and Lena felt the sharp nip of her teeth when she pulled back.  They paused, staring at each other, their chests rising and falling with labored breath and Kara’s eyes burned into hers.  Lena just looked at her with open eyes that she hoped said nothing but  _ yes, yes, yes. _

“Will you tell me if it’s too much?” Kara asked, her voice a quiet storm.

“My word is kryptonite,” Lena whispered.  “But I know I won’t need to use it.”

And then Kara, her always-maddeningly-gentle Kara, was pushing her down on her back, biting her lips and neck, and the bites were like hot needles but Lena clung to her.  “I love you,” she whispered, and Kara tore the clothes from Lena’s body in one tug.  She tossed the ruined, torn pieces of clothing onto the floor and laid herself on top of Lena.  She was heavy, not holding back her weight the way she could, the way, Lena realized, she always did.  Lena felt the space between her bones compress and gasped for air.  “Kara,” she managed.

But Kara was raking teeth down her neck and shoulders, raking nails down her skin, and the scratching left little burning trails that she knew would be red the next day, and didn’t care.  She drew one sharp, stuttering breath after another, barely able to speak but her pleading hands tugged at Kara’s clothing.  Kara stood, picked her up and carried her to the bed, threw her down on the mattress, knocking the air out of her lungs for a moment.  And then in a split second, Kara was naked on top of her.  

“You never hurt me that way again,” Kara rasped against her neck.  

“No,”  Lena promised.  “Never.”

She knew she’d have bruises on her wrists from the way Kara pinned them to the mattress, and black and blue fingerprints on her hips from when Kara gripped them as she laid hot bites down Lena’s stomach.  Lena’s skin was on fire, and her stomach felt like it did in that moment before the roller coaster went thundering down from the top.  As rough as it was, she knew Kara’s strength and knew she was still holding back.  

“More,” she whispered, pressing herself upwards into Kara’s body.

Kara responded by pressing Lena’s knee up against her chest and pushing fingers inside her.  She had never had this, Kara fucking her this way, hard and deep, her thrusts driven by the force of her hips.  The headboard was knocking against the wall and Lena was releasing sweetly agonized moans at each repeated push.  She came, hard, and Kara didn’t relent, and kept at her, pounding her until she came again.  And it hurt, but it was delicious.  

She let Kara flip her over, yank her hips into the air, and press into her again, taking her once more from behind, with one hand knotted in her hair.  Lena could feel that she was dripping wet, and swollen, and Kara’s mouth was marking her back.  Her heart thudded in her ribcage as she lay there, submitting her body to whatever Kara wanted to do to it.  

“I’m yours,” she moaned, as Kara fucked her again, buried deep inside her and hitting her with fast, deep thrusts.

“You’re mine,” Kara answered back through heavy breaths.

“I love you,” Lena cried, feeling Kara filling her body, her heart, her pussy, with her sweetly violent passion.  “I trust you.”

“Yessss,” Kara hissed, unrelenting, and it was like steam escaping.

“Please forgive me,” Lena cried.

“Yes,” Kara moaned, and Lena felt hot tears on her back.

Lena came again, clutching at Kara’s fingers.  Kara pressed deep inside her and stayed there, holding still for a moment as Lena shuddered again and again.  Kara slowly withdrew from her, and Lena she stayed as she was, waiting for Kara to lead.  After a moment, she felt Kara’s hands, gentle as she was accustomed to, urging her onto her back.  Lena rolled over and looked at her.

Kara looked emotionally wrung out, in much the same way that Lena felt.  She could see Kara’s eyes inspecting the bite marks and scratches and bruises on her skin, the anxious edge in her voice as she asked quietly, “Are you alright?”

Lena released a large sigh, and some tears trickled out along with it.  “Yes,” she sniffled.  “What about you?”

Kara nodded, but she didn’t look sure.  Her fingers traced a spot on Lena’s shoulder that was already turning blue.  

“I can’t take back what I said, as much as I wish I could, but… Do you believe now that I feel safe with you?”  Lena asked softly.

Kara nodded.  “But… but did you… did you like it this way?”

Lena stroked Kara’s cheek.  “I did.  I liked feeling more of you.  More of what you were feeling.  It’s okay to release those feelings that way, you know.”

Kara shook her head.  “That’s very hard for me to get used to.”

“I know.”  They looked at each other a long moment, and then Kara settled into Lena’s arms and laid her golden head on Lena’s chest.  

“You can’t lie to me like that again, Lena,” Kara said after a long silence.

“I know.  I won’t.  And I’m going to work every day to make this right, and make sure that you know I trust you, and that you can trust me.”

They held each other for another long silence.  Then Kara said, “I think we should get you into a warm bath and then I should put some cream or something on you.  Some of those marks look like they might hurt a little later.”

But Lena loved those marks.  They were badges of love and of trust.  She would worry them with her fingers until they faded away, and then ask for more.  And bit by bit, they would have all of each other.


	13. Chapter 13

**The First Time Lena Felt What it Was Like to Be Part of a Real Family**

 

Holidays usually left Lena feeling empty.  What passed for a family, she didn’t even have anymore; her mother in prison, her father gone, her brother in a maximum security mental institution.  She generally preferred to spend the day working.  But here she was, eight months into her relationship with Kara Danvers, Supergirl, and Thanksgiving was coming upon them, and Kara wasn’t taking no for an answer.  Lena was coming to Midvale with her and they were going to spend Thanksgiving together.  A little tingle of excitement and dread ran through her nerves every time she thought of it.  She’d been around so-called normal families before, but not in a while.  She’d met Eliza a few times by now, a few times for dinner here in the city when she came to visit, and once or twice at other events.  But spending a holiday together was more significant.  It was a move toward being embraced into that family.  

Frankly, it was terrifying.  

Alex opened the door and ushered them in.  Kara’s big sister was fiercely defensive of her, and while she seemed to genuinely like Lena, she was also just slightly menacing in the most subtle of ways, her smile and the way she’d sometimes grasp Lena’s shoulder or pat her on the back just ever so faintly telegraphing, _Be good to her or I’ll kill you and it will hurt a lot._ Lena hadn’t forgotten that low-key shovel talk Alex had given her.

Alex’s girlfriend Maggie was there as well.  They found Eliza in the kitchen with the oven hanging open, cramming what seemed like an impossible number of crocks and roasting pans into an already crowded oven.  “That oven is packed tighter than a public bus in Mumbai,” she chuckled.

Eliza smiled warmly and closed the oven.  “Yes, any more dishes and they’ll be hanging on for dear life to the outside of it.”  She set down the potholders and embraced Kara and then Lena.  “I traveled there twice for biomed conferences and the bus rides were pretty hard to forget.”

Lena offered to help Eliza and she gratefully accepted.  Kara ran off with Alex and Maggie, chattering away about something or other, and it occurred to Lena as she stood there in the kitchen with Eliza, being handed a peeler and a pile of fresh carrots, that this felt somewhat engineered.  Eliza wanted a moment with her and Kara and Alex had conspired to make that happen.   _Little minx,_ she thought, _I’m going to get her for this._

She wished for a glass of wine, but the house was dry out of respect for Alex, who had stopped drinking just a few months ago.  She breathed steadily, trying to calm her nerves.

“So,” Eliza began in a tone that Lena had trouble placing, “how long has it been with you and Kara now?”

Lena smiled and focused her attention on the carrots.  “Eight months, or just a little more.”

Eliza nodded and made a little sound of what Lena guessed was approval.  “That’s a while, isn’t it?  It’s certainly longer than anything else she’s been in.”

Lena bit her lip and continued peeling.  She began in as light hearted a tone as she could manage, “Listen, Eliza, if this is a shovel talk, Alex has already given me one of those–”

Eliza let out a little hoot.  “Of course she did, my Alex,” she sighed, laughing and shaking her head.  “No, Lena.  This is not a shovel talk.  I just … I like seeing her happy.  She’s spent so much of her life on the outside of things, struggled to make things work with so many people, and it’s nice to see something just… working.”

Lena hesitated.  She didn’t know where Eliza was going with this.  She looked up at her and said earnestly, “Well, I have to confess, Eliza, I am a bit of work.”

Eliza continued smiling.  “We all are, dear.  You’ll figure that out as you get older.  It’s always work.  Jeremiah was my soulmate and even we had to work at it sometimes."  She sighed.  "Yes, it’s always work.  The question is whether it’s worth it.”

Lena returned her attention to the carrots.   “She’s worth it,” Lena said quietly.

Eliza came closer and put a hand gently on Lena’s back.  “Well, she appears to have decided that you are, too.”

She’d never really thought of it in those terms before.  All she knew was that every time she got scared of what she felt for Kara, she hung on tighter.  And every time she was afraid Kara was going to leave, Kara stayed, sometimes furiously and stubbornly.  That was what love really was, wasn’t it?  Not the sweet things, the romantic things, the hot naked things.  No, it was just choosing each other again and again.  

Eliza looked at her sympathetically.  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to meddle.  But I want you to understand that if you decide, at some point, that you want to be part of this family… well, as far as I’m concerned, you already are.  You’re so very important to her.  And that makes you important to me, too.”

Lena fought back a swell of tears.  “Does that mean you won’t let Alex kill me?”

“Oh, Lena, of course I won’t let her kill you.”

Lena smiled.

Eliza drew her into a warm hug.  “Unless you do something to deserve it.”

They started laughing.  Lena may have cried a little, but she wasn’t going to talk about it now.

They all pitched in with getting dinner onto the table and they ate and drank and told jokes and stories.  Lena and Eliza and Alex got into a deep discussion about xenobiology which Kara and Maggie excused themselves from, preferring to retire to the living room and watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and argue over its historical accuracy and intellectual honesty.

Lena’s heart felt strange.  She felt warm.  She almost felt like she fit, here.  After dessert, they all curled up on the large couches in the living room, Kara resting her head on Lena’s shoulder, and they watched the WKRP Thanksgiving classic where they dropped the turkeys out of the helicopter, not realizing that turkeys couldn’t fly.  She felt Kara’s body shaking with giggles next to her.  Lena relaxed into her and enjoyed it for all she was worth.

She leaned down and whispered into Kara’s ear, “I could get used to this.”

Kara tilted her head back and looked at her.  “What?”

“Being with you,” she murmured.  “Like this.  Like a family.”

Kara smiled and gave her a soft peck on the cheek.  “Yeah, it’s not so bad, is it.”

Lena tangled her fingers in Kara’s hand, which was resting in her lap.  “No, it really isn’t.”

Kara burrowed her head into the curve of Lena’s neck and didn’t speak for a few moments more as she giggled at the story unfolding on the glowing television.  “Just wait till Christmas,” she whispered after a moment.

Christmas.  Dear God.  Lena took a few breaths.  Christmas.  

 _Yeah_ , she thought.   _Christmas.  I can do that._

Kara knew what Christmas was, or more accurately wasn’t, for Lena.  “Don’t worry about your bad memories,” she murmured into Lena’s ear.  “We’ll write new ones.”


	14. Chapter 14

A year had gone by in the blink of an eye.  She had become Kara’s lover, best friend, companion, confidant, and it had happened so naturally that by the time she realized she was head over heels in love, there was no turning back.  So she trimmed the sails and rode the wind forward into the storm.

Kara was her rock, her hero, her shining star, and the only thing that ever could save her from herself.  Kara hung on long past when others would have left because Kara loved her.  Kara believed in her.  Nobody had really done that, not without selfish motivations.  

Lena knew she was flawed.  But she was trying.  And nobody had really made her want to try so hard before this.  Kara was the first.  In a hundred different ways, at a hundred different times over the course of the last year, Kara was the first.

Lena stood staring at a glass case filled with jewelry until her eyes just about swam.  She had impeccable taste and unlimited funds.  This should be easy.  But it wasn’t.  She needed to find the one that was perfect.  It wouldn’t necessarily be the biggest, although it could be.  It wouldn’t necessarily be the flashiest (in fact Kara would kill her if it was).  It had to be beautiful.  It had to be as beautiful as Kara and that, that was a tall order.  It had to be subtle, it had to be understated, it had to be beautiful, it had to shine like the sun and be precious and perfect, and nothing looked right.  Nothing looked good enough.  All these stunning, sparkling choices, and not one was the one.

She had never struggled like this when picking out a piece of jewelry before.

In the end, she had something made.  That was the only way she could get the right thing.  The big stone wasn’t a diamond.  It was a black opal, modest in size but filled with flawless rainbow colored fire, like the flames of a galaxy burning within it.  She had it set in a delicate gold band, and on either side was set  scattering of tiny diamond chips, each in a very specific pattern: on the left, the star system of Krypton, and on the right, the one of Earth.  It was perfect.  Perfect like Kara.  Perfect like their love, which had been tested again and again and come out brighter and more beautiful.  

She stood looking at it, sitting in the black velvet of its box, and her head was clear and her heart was ready.  This was, in a long year of firsts, yet another; the first time Lena had felt sure that she wanted to give this, give herself, to anyone.  The first time she looked at the rest of her life and couldn’t imagine it without this love, this one person, at her side.  

Kara had been her first friend in National City. And so many other firsts after that.  And now she was the first girl that she wanted to be with, for as much time she had on this earth.  

Lena hoped against hope that she’d say yes, but she already felt it in her gut, in her bones, that Kara would be the last.


End file.
